"Oh," I said, as if that explained everything. Well, almost everything. "Mitchell?"

"Yeah."

"We live on the fourth floor."

"Yes, we do," he confirmed.

"Of a walkup."

"I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at," he said.

"How did this get up here?"

He shrugged. "You know."

Before I could ask what it was that he assumed I knew, he'd wandered away.

"I'm going to bed," I concluded and headed straight to my room. If the world was going to fling crap like that at me like it was some kind of inbred monkey, I was just going to have to put myself in the proper state of mind. With enough marijuana to intoxicate a water buffalo, I crawled out my window.

After the day I'd had, nothing was going to make me happier than this bowl. But just before I touched flame to green, a voice from my neighbor's apartment called out, "Dude, is that you?"

I considered taking a hit before replying, but I wanted to savor every moment with my green, foul-smelling victory. "No."

"Dude," she said, callously disregarding my falsehood, "I've got to show you something."

"I don't got to see it." Unless it was herself clad only in a lacy pushup bra, preferably in cerulean blue, which would brighten up her eyes. That was negotiable.

"Aren't you even curious?"

"No."

"Guess."

I took a deep breath, unfortunately, of regular air, uncontaminated by cannabis. What was it going to take to get some goddamned peace in my life. "Will you leave me alone if I do?"

"Only if you want me to."

"Oh, I want you to."

"We'll see about that." She added, "Go on, guess!"

I folded up my pipe. This was going to take a while. Now what the hell could be so exciting that I had to endure this? I took a stab at it: "Is it...?"

"It's apple butter!"

My mind said, "What?" My mouth also said, "What?"

"Come inside and I'll show you."

"Can you show me out here?"

There was a long pause as she considered her answer. "Please!"

"Fine," I growled, prying open her window."

"I'm in the kitchen!"

Stepping out of her bedroom, I found myself completely disoriented. Her apartment was only two-thirds the size of mine, so why couldn't I find the kitchen? "Marco!" I shouted.

"Polo!" she shouted back.

Following the sound of her voice, I muttered, "How does one get the apple milk to make the apple curd you need to churn to... Oh, my."

I had to conclude that the unlabeled jar in her left hand contained apple butter, because she was sucking on the finger of the other one, and she appeared to be enjoying it. When I opened my mouth, I'd planned on asking her about that, but what I actually said indicated what was really on the forefront of my mind: "You're not wearing your shirt."

She didn't say anything; she just grinned an enormous, smug grin. Below her waist were her unremarkable track pants--the ones I had once torn off so eagerly not long ago--but above the waist she wore only a periwinkle, pushup bra.

Periwinkle. Okay, I was willing to compromise.

I needed to say something right now. It needed to be witty, but not so funny that it would kill this hypnotic stare-down we had going on. I said, "Apple butter?"

She took a moment to finish licking her finger clean before she asked, "Want some?"

With the grace of a zombie, I reached for the jar.

She pulled away and scolded me, "Like this!" She dipped her finger into the jar and held it held it in front of my face.

Without breaking eye contact, I steadied her hand with mine and enjoyed my first taste of the touted apple butter.

"Although," she said, "there may be one way to make it even better." With that, she dunked my pinkie in the jar and licked it.

Using my free hand, I braced myself on the nearest door frame, seeing as my legs were now useless to me.

"Not bad," she purred. "So what to you think?"

I grabbed the back of her neck, pulled her closer, and kissed her ravenously. From that point forward, only one thought in my head had any sort of coherency, and it demanded that she leave that sexy-as-hell bra alone as long as possible. The rest of the clothing in the room, however, was fair game. Sure enough, my pant, shirt, and tie joined her track pants in a pile in the corner. Don't ask me how they got there. I don't even remember how my boots and socks got off of my feet, and those were usually the things that crippled momentum.

The rational part of my mind only surfaced for a moment when it heard her gasp, "Wait." She fumbled around the counter until she opened her silverware drawer and retrieved a condom. A few minutes of frenzied grappling, fumbling, and thrusting later, she caught her breath and asked, "Can we lie down on the floor now?"

I nodded and helped her off the counter.

After we rested and enjoyed some air, we both laughed. She helped herself out of that beautiful, beautiful bra. "What did you think of the apple butter?"